Organizational Culture

Over the years I’ve participated in a number of external organizational reviews (for academic libraries, public libraries, and IT divisions). While all organizations are truly different, even unique, there are two characteristics that almost always emerged as key issues during these assessments:

Communication

Culture

I’m going to come back to “communication” in a future post. For today it’s about culture.

“Culture” is one of those things everyone thinks is a problem …. and everyone has a different answer to “fix”. And there’s the rub …. “fix”. You don’t fix culture, you nurture the culture you want (or that’s needed). Remember Peter Drucker:

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

But let’s be clear about this, culture is a strategic element of a successful organization. It doesn’t “just happen.” It is organic but it’s managed. A tilled garden.

I’m also reminded that we often don’t see organizational cultures going bad when we are sitting inside them. What Hemingway said about how you go bankrupt is also true about how organizations develop a dysfunctional culture: